sustainability

Early budbreak of shrub willow allows it to be close to full canopy cover when corn has not been even planted, capturing more radiation and water for growth, and likely preventing excess runoff in spring. Picture taken at Rockview in 4 April 2017.

CenUSA Bioenergy, a USDA coordinated agriculture project, was funded to address the challenges of producing biofuel and other products in an environmentally sustainable way that doesn’t interfere with food production or cause adverse land use change.

Over the past five years CenUSA has generated a wealth of information across nine different objectives. This video highlights major accomplishments of each objective in the CenUSA Bioenergy project.

Video Type:

Instructional Video

Author / Producer:

Pam Porter, CenUSA, U. of Wisconsin

Acknowledgments:

This CenUSA video was produced by Pamela Porter, University of Wisconsin Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems; and Don Fleischman, University of Wisconsin Division of Information Technology.

CenUSA Bioenergy is supported by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant no. 2011-68005-30411 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

In Midwest prairie states, like Iowa, biochar is a natural ingredient in soils, the result of thousands of years of prairie fires. In that ancient system, however, the fire’s energy was wasted. Today biochar can be created as a by-product of the fast pyrolysis process, turning biomass like corn stover into useable energy.

Then, by returning biochar to the soil as an amendment, growers can harvest more of a crop’s stover for bioenergy without jeopardizing soil quality or yields. In fact, biochar may improve crop yields in poorer soils. Biochar retains about half the nutrients of the original biomass, including potash, phosphorus, nitrogen and minerals, and also boosts soil organic matter.

“Biochar is the manure of the bioenergy industry, a way of building soils,” according to Laird.

Video Type:

Instructional Video

Author / Producer:

David Laird, Iowa State U.

Acknowledgments:

Video presentation from the US Biochar Conference 2012.

David Laird, professor of agronomy at Iowa State University; researcher for CenUSA Bioenergy project.

Imagine a jazzy new national future with alternative energies replacing petrochemical sources and all their associated problems. The combination of advancing technology, new thinking and changing government policies put us on the brink of major societal changes. Listen to noted Cornell Professor and national leader Dr. Larry Walker provide an assessment of the state of biofuel development and where we need to go in order to achieve greater sustainability, energy independence and widespread commercialization.

Video Type:

Instructional Video

Author / Producer:

Dr. Larry Walker / Dr. Bill Sciarappa, Rutgers U.

Acknowledgments:

During Larry’s 25 years at Cornell he has been involved in a number of biomass to energy and chemical projects including an assessment of New York State biomass resources available for ethanol production, farm-scale methane production and co-generation, the application of nanotechnology to characterizing and studying important biocatalysts for industrial biotechnology, and optimization of solid-state fermentation for the production of biocontrol products. He is the Director of the Northeast Sun Grant Institute of Excellence.